Other senses in dreams

DaveC426913

DaveC426913

Valued Senior Member
I had a dream last night in which I could taste my food. Never done that before.

I was eating some sandwich or burger or something that had chunks of white cheese on it.
When I took a bite though, instead of savory cheese, it was sweet, like the cream in an Easter Cream egg. It caught me off guard.

I said to my friends "How long has that glob been hanging from my chin?"

(Full disclosure: I had been eating cream-filled chocolates earlier that day.)

Anyone experience senses other than sight, sounds and touch in dreams?
 
Not very often. Taste and smell are apparently not well cross-referenced in the mental archive. Even touch, I've found, is limited to overall sensations, like wetness or pressure, rather than nuanced textures.
When you actually smell or taste something in waking life, the sense evokes all kinds of associated memories, but not the other way around. I suspect the taste-memory which prompted that dream was a physical one - some lingering molecules under your tongue? That's the only kind of taste and smell dream experiences I've had: physical traces of something I had encountered not long before falling asleep. I suspect a nocturnal belch.
 
I dreamt last night that I'd stopped off at a road side real estate office, and got into a discussion with several people there about commuting in the local town in my area, mostly revolving around the added cost of parking at the GO stations.

One strapping fella was expounding on his experiences, and I found remarkable the quality of his voice. He had one of those clear baritone voices that are just made for radio. I went to mention it to him, suggesting he would find lots of work in the radio business.


And then I woke up to my clock radio, where the morning hosts were discussing commuting by train in our area...
 
So dreams work in a way closely connected with free association?

When I go to bed I pick up my guitar and play whatever I feel.

Recently I found myself wondering if the mental state involved in that was close to dreaming (and whether,by this activity I was eating into my sleep requirement or maybe that it counted as part of my sleep-at least the mental as opposed to the physical side of recuperation )
 
I've experienced fear, and upon awaking, still feel that fear linger for a bit.
 
DaveC426913 said:
Anyone experience senses other than sight, sounds and touch in dreams?
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At one time or another. But tending to be either rare or taste and smell just not remembered as well upon waking up as the visual/auditory/tactile experiences.

Dreams of congenitally blind people recruit every sensation except visual manifestations.
 
just me said:
pain.
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Is it a dream pain, though? Or is it an actual pain to which your sleeping body needs to alert you?
I have dreamt often of my teeth breaking and falling out, when I used to clench my teeth - but never once since I broke the habit. I have sometimes dreamt of my arm turning to stone when the circulation was actually restricted (had it tucked under my head), or being chained up in leg-irons when my feet tangled in the blanket. The subconscious tends to exaggerate: the situation experienced in the dream is much more severe than the real discomfort that triggers it.
 
Jeeves said:
Is it a dream pain, though? Or is it an actual pain to which your sleeping body needs to alert you?
I have dreamt often of my teeth breaking and falling out, when I used to clench my teeth - but never once since I broke the habit. I have sometimes dreamt of my arm turning to stone when the circulation was actually restricted (had it tucked under my head), or being chained up in leg-irons when my feet tangled in the blanket. The subconscious tends to exaggerate: the situation experienced in the dream is much more severe than the real discomfort that triggers it.
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its only in the dream.
 
Jeeves said:
Is it a dream pain, though? Or is it an actual pain to which your sleeping body needs to alert you?
... being chained up in leg-irons when my feet tangled in the blanket.
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I've had this occasionally. At least I assume that's what it is.

I dream that I'm trying to run but my legs won't swing more than a few inches.

Once, in my dream, I was desperate, and gave myself a huge heave - only to wake up and find my outside leg all the way over on my wife's side. Six inches lower and I would have kneed her full in the keyster.

Did something similar with my arm. Came within six inches of clobbering her in the head.
 
DaveC426913 said:
I've had this occasionally. At least I assume that's what it is.
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That's similar - or part of the same thing. When you're in deep REM sleep, you have no direct control of your muscles, so you have to wake part way up to be able to move at all. There's a time-lag between volition - which you experience in the dream as part of a narrative - and effect - which is erratic and inappropriate, since the movements of the actual body do not match the intention in the dream.
 
Jeeves said:
There's a time-lag between volition - which you experience in the dream as part of a narrative - and effect
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This time lag has always fascinated me.

I recall once dreaming I watched a lamp fall over on my desk. It fell silently, but made a crash when it landed, waking me up.
Upon awakening, I discovered that the lamp had fallen over on my desk, making a crash and waking me up.

What fascinates me is the order of events that must have occurred.:
Lamp falls over.
Lamp makes crashing noise.
I hear crashing noise in my sleep but do not register it immediately.
In an attempt to normalize the sound as part of a dream so as not to wake me up, I dream the lamp fell over on my desk, making a crashing noise.
 
DaveC426913 said:
In an attempt to normalize the sound as part of a dream so as not to wake me up, I dream the lamp fell over on my desk, making a crashing noise.
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Yes! And sometimes the dream narrative is far more complex than the event which prompted it. I once had a whole elaborate kidnapping-robbery story (I often dream movies) based on a basket-weave lampshade (it became the mask worn by one of the kidnappers) over my bed.
Of course, we have to remember that dreaming takes place in the synapses of the brain: it can generate images, sensations and sequential events at a far greater speed than anything happens in the world outside.
 
DaveC426913 said:
Once, in my dream, I was desperate, and gave myself a huge heave - only to wake up and find my outside leg all the way over on my wife's side. Six inches lower and I would have kneed her full in the keyster.

Did something similar with my arm. Came within six inches of clobbering her in the head.
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My wife has the same type sleep issue.!!!
For years now... about once a mounth i wake up from bein hit right in the noise... an then she just finishes out her nights sleep as if nuthin ever happened -_O
 
cluelusshusbund said:
My wife has the same type sleep issue.!!!
For years now... about once a mounth i wake up from bein hit right in the noise... an then she just finishes out her nights sleep as if nuthin ever happened -_O
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Yeeeah...
Is that what she tells you?


"Oh, I was definitely asleep".

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